Technical assistance and direction for RWJF's Lead States in Public Health Quality Improvement program

The Foundation's initiative, Lead States in Public Health Quality Improvement, was designed to create a peer network of innovator states with experience in designing and implementing a process for systematic assessment of local public health agency capacity and performance.This grant supports continued technical assistance and direction for the Lead States in Public Health Quality Improvement by the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI).The goal of this peer network is to foster the continued development of existing assessment programs and widely disseminate the lessons learned to maximize the effectiveness of governmental public health agencies. NNPHI will convene representatives from the five states with public health practice experts and partners for two face-to-face meetings, bimonthly teleconferences, site visits, and Web-based communications. NNPHI will provide technical assistance, share resources, and provide consultants as needed to the member states. NNPHI will also serve as the collaborative's liaison with the National Association of County and City Health Officials-Association of State and Territorial Health Officials Exploring Accreditation Project, funneling syntheses of the collaborative's findings to that project and, in turn, receiving requests from the Exploring Accreditation Project and raising them for discussion and response by the collaborative. In addition, NNPHI will prepare and widely circulate summaries, executive briefs, and longer documents reporting the findings, best practices, and conclusions of the collaborative to the public health community, elected officials, policymakers, and other sectors.